November/December 2016• www.njmasters.org • Front Page November/December 2016 NJ LMSC Board Volunteer transitions Thank you to our continuing and outgoing volunteers and welcome aboard new volunteers! We would like to take a moment to express our sincere gratitude to our outgoing NJ LMSC Board volunteers; Lynn Ascione, Julie Schoenlank, and Bridgette Hobart/Jason Pintinalli. Your shared passion, dedication, and work for Masters Swimming in NJ has helped to maintain our high level of service to our members and is greatly appreciated! It has been a true pleasure serving with you and we wish you all the best along your new paths!! Of course, if anything changes for you, we would love to have you all back on our team!! We are also very fortunate to have three new volunteers! Please join us in extending a warm welcome to our newest NJ LMSC Board volunteers who are joining our team! Events Coordinator ~~ Kim Plewa Webmaster ~~ Marin Kirk Newsletter Member Articles Contributing Editor ~~ Pia Lord Congratulations to all returning NJ Masters Swimming Board Volunteers on your recent re- election/re-appointment!! Chair: Susan Kirk Vice-Chair: Chris McGiffin Co-Registrars: Tom Brunson and Chris McGiffin Treasurer: Bill Reichle Top Ten/Records: Ed Tsuzuki Newsletter Editor: Sara Johnston Secretary: Susan Kirk Sanctions & Safety Chair: Jen Bauman Open Water Chair: Sarah Clark Fitness Chair: Linda Brown-Kuhn Officials Chair: Marie Vellucci Website Content Review: Colleen Driscoll
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November/December 2016• www.njmasters.org • Front Page
November/December 2016
NJ LMSC Board Volunteer transitions Thank you to our continuing and outgoing volunteers
and welcome aboard new volunteers! We would like to take a moment to express our sincere gratitude to our outgoing NJ LMSC Board volunteers; Lynn Ascione, Julie Schoenlank, and Bridgette Hobart/Jason Pintinalli. Your shared passion, dedication, and work for Masters Swimming in NJ has helped to maintain our high level of service to our members and is greatly appreciated! It has been a true pleasure serving with you and we wish you all the best along your new paths!! Of course, if anything changes for you, we would love to have you all back on our team!!
We are also very fortunate to have three new volunteers! Please join us in extending a warm welcome to our newest NJ LMSC Board volunteers who are joining our team!
Events Coordinator ~~ Kim Plewa
Webmaster ~~ Marin Kirk
Newsletter Member Articles Contributing Editor ~~ Pia Lord
Congratulations to all returning NJ Masters Swimming Board Volunteers on your recent re-election/re-appointment!!
Sixth Annual 50 X 50’s Slated for January 14 Start 2017 right by swimming in the Sixth Annual 50 X 50’s on Saturday, January 14th from
9- 11:30 am. Once again this swim, sponsored by the NJ LMSC, is FREE to all registered 2017
USMS swimmers.
This year we are changing the venue and are pleased to announce that the swim will be
held at the fabulous Berkeley Aquatic Club at 629 Central Ave, New Providence, NJ 07974. We
will have 5 long course 50-meter lanes for those swimming the 5 fastest intervals and 3 short
course 25-yard lanes for more novice swimmers.
As we did last year, we are offering a mini freestyle clinic from 9-9:30 for those who are in-
terested in tweaking their technique. The 50 X 50’s will begin at 9:30 and refreshments will be
available after the swim. To register, email Linda Brown-Kuhn at [email protected] with your
name and 2017 USMS registration number. The event is open to the first 60 swimmers.
Swim University is Returning ~~
The Third Year Should be a Charm Swim University’s inaugural class of 2015 had 33 swimmers who
logged in 5,456.93 miles. Mighty impressive. Swim University 2016’s 39
graduates swam 6,583.37 miles! For Swim University 2017 let’s aim for
more than 7,000 miles!
We welcome alumni to enroll again and better their mileage and
newbies to see what kind of degrees they can earn. Here’s how it works:
Swim University starts January 1 and runs to June 30th. All you do is
swim as much as you can and keep track of your mileage by using USMS’s Go the Distance log
which you must sign up for first. So during those six months if you swim 30 miles you’ll earn your
Associate’s degree, 60 miles will get you a Bachelor’s degree, if you log in 120 miles you’ll have a
Master’s degree and for 240 miles you’ll become a PhD in swimology!
This is a wonderful way to push yourself during the cold winter months when it’s not always
so easy to trundle to the pool! We challenge those who participated last year to go for a higher de-
gree this year and for those PhD’s out there, try for a higher-mileage PhD. And we’re looking for a
whole new crop of swim students too!
At the end of the swim you’ll receive an official unofficial diploma for whatever level of swim
fitness achievement you attained plus we’ll have some goodie available, maybe a custom sling
bag or cap.
To sign up, email Linda Brown-Kuhn at [email protected] with your USMS # and make sure you are participating in Go The Distance (find info at www.usms.org ) so you can log in your swims from January 1 to June 30 with a July 7 deadline for entering yardage. What degree will you go for? They are all homework free!
The author, Lynne Cox, is an elite athlete who has made her mark in frigid open water swims. She first swam the English Channel at fifteen and was the first woman to swim across Cook Strait (eighteen miles). Of particular note, she was first to swim off Antarctica in 32-degree water, without benefit of wetsuit, for twenty-five minutes.
Swimming in the Sink begins when she is studied at a laboratory at the University of London. Her extraordinary human capabilities studied scien-tifically in ice-cold water, would pave the way for new medical and life-saving practices.
But there is the element of serendipity here, an element that should be of interest to physicians, par-ticularly cardiologists along with practitioners in al-lied fields. This strong-hearted woman became a victim of “Broken Heart Syndrome.”
We’re all familiar with expressions like “it broke her heart when . . ..”
For Lynne, her heart was broken, literally and figura-tively, in the wake of the deaths of her beloved par-ents and even of her beloved Labrador retriever, all in a short span of time. She began to fatigue, to ex-perience atrial fibrillations, leg swelling and edema of the lungs resulting finally an ejection fraction of
only 15% (normal 55-70%). Her doctors were talk-ing to her about a heart transplant. Imaging showed her heart’s pumping chambers enlarged and dilated.
The title of the book tells of the times she would actually move her hands and arms in a filled sink, “baby steps” in her determination to recover.
Inspiring is her path to total recovery, motored by excellent medical care, friendship, and the elements of her person that made her a championship athlete.
Backstroke, Then and Now By Paul Kiell
NJ Masters swimmer
Paul Kiell
backstroking,
1951
The image below is of me in a 200-yard backstroke race, January 1951. It was a dual meet
between my college, Washington and Jefferson, and Bethany College. It took place at the 4-lane
20-yard Washington and Jefferson College pool.
Backstroke technique consisted of a straight-arm, elbow-locked recovery, and palm down
making it easier to shed water. Then the placement the hand at a 45˚ angle from the head, palm
down with subsequent arm pull consisting of a slight twist of the hand followed by another straight
-arm elbow-locked sweep of the arm 4-6 inches below the water’s surface.
For the turn, just as in freestyle then, you’d have to touch the wall. In backstroke you’d do a
semi-pivot, semi-somersault. Today, besides the variations in turning, in both freestyle and back-
stroke, the elbow is unlocked and the propulsive thrust of the forearm is perpendicular rather than
parallel to the surface of the water.
At the time, the world record holder for the 100-yard backstroke was Adolph Kiefer at 58:8
seconds. His 1936 Olympic record for the 100m was 1:05.9 and his world record time the same
year was 104.8. Kiefer’s original Olympic record was broken at the 1952 Olympiad by the Hawai-
ian born Yoshi Oyakawa. His time was 1:05.4
Oyakawa has been called the “last of the straight-arm backstrokers.” He is about three
years younger than me and is still competing in master’s events. There would be at least one year
we’d be in the same YMCA master’s backstroke events. He is a fine man, low keyed and a gen-
tleman. It was always a great thrill to be in the same contest as Yoshi, even though the gap be-
Do you have a wonderful swim experience you could share in the newsletter? Did you particularly en-joy swimming, a swim training experience or endeavor, or other swimming related activities that you might write about for an upcoming monthly publication?
It can be as general or as detailed as you have time for keeping in mind that it might be of interest to the readers of the NJ LMSC.